RELAPSE - Arthur Fleck | Joker FANFIC/LOVE STORY

Chapter 24: Couple of Clowns

Anon's POV:

Arthur and I walked into the big common room at Ha Ha's. Per usual, there were several men lounging in the room, half dressed in their clown getups, either talking about the most recent news story or silently playing cards.  Gary was in the room and was the only one that greeted us.  I really liked Gary, he was nice.

Arthur showed me where the bathroom was so I could get changed into my clown getup. Part of me still couldn't believe I was going through with this.  I locked myself in the bathroom and pulled my thrift store finds out of my purple backpack and took a second look at each item. I had no idea if what I picked out would make me a good looking clown or not, but I liked all of the different colors.

After I changed my clothes, I emerged from the bathroom and made shy steps towards Arthur. I could feel the heat rush to my cheeks as the guys in the room took their turns looking at me.  I caught my reflection in mirrors of the vanities as I passed by them. When I got to the vanity that was next to the one that Arthur was at, I took a good look at myself.

I was wearing:  A short sleeve yellow dress that had a few layered ruffles at the end that went to right above my knee with a faded flannel blazer that was colored with olive green, orange, pink, blue, red, teal, yellow and purple.  I also had on one red knee high sock, one teal knee high sock, brown shoes, and an olive green scarf to complete the look.  I went simple with my hair and just pulled it into two high, side pigtails.

I wasn't sure how to feel about my appearance. I guess it was kind of silly looking and that's the point of a clown, right? To be silly?

I turned my attention to Arthur, who was sitting down, shirtless, applying his white face paint and didn't notice that I was standing next too him.  I cleared my throat, which caused him to look up into my direction and eye me from head to toe.

Arthur's expression, as he inspected me, was blank. His nothing-but-white face reminded me of a kabuki mask and it gave me an unsettling feeling for some reason.  At least until he flashed me a big smile, "You look great!  Now you just gotta paint your face."  He turned back toward the mirror to apply the rest of his face paint.

I stood there and watched him as he applied the blue triangles above and below his eyes, the red eyebrows, and the red smile.  Once he was satisfied with what he did, he got up to get dressed and I slid into his seat at the vanity and looked at the different colored face paints he had. Most of his paints were unused, except for the white, red and blue of course. So, I decided to make use of some of the other colors.

I applied the white face paint and then decided to focus on my eyes first. I painted a purple circle around my left eye that went all the way to my eyebrow, followed the curve of my brow and made it's way around to line my cheekbone.  Once the outline for the circle was completed, I colored it in with the purple. For my right eye, I just did a pink triangle under the eye, which I colored in pink, and then painted a small pink dot at tip of the triangle. I was being a perfectionist about it, so it took me a while to do this. I was about to start on my red smile when Arthur came up behind me.  He was completely decked out as Carnival.

I looked at him in the mirror, "Hey you."

"Hey love," he sat in the chair at the vanity next to us and scooted it close to me, "Here, let me," he reached for the paint brush I was holding and I handed it to him as I turned my body to face him.

I had already cleaned the brush, so he rubbed the bristles against the red paint and brought the brush to my face as he leaned his body in closer so his face was only inches in front of mine.  He started by making gentle strokes against my right cheek to start forming the smile and made very careful movements with the brush as he drew out the whole outline for the smile.  The bristles tickled my skin, so I had to work very hard to keep myself still; I didn't want to mess up his work because be seemed to take it very seriously. Everytime he pulled the brush away to replenish the paint, he would carefully assess his work. When he started coloring in the smile, he slowly ran the bristles across my lips, almost in a sensual way.  Or was I imagining that?